More than 100 ideas from the community have been crowd-sourced to improve HDB living since the launch of the Cool Ideas for Better HDB Living initiative in July 2011. Since then, HDB has harnessed the enthusiastic response from the ground and continuously engaged the public regularly through three different platforms under the Cool Ideas for Better Living umbrella. These platforms are namely the (i) Constituency Competitions for residents, (ii) Design Competitions for students, and (iii) Calls for Ideas via Facebook for the online community at large.

2Today’s launch of the 2013 Constituency Competition for Ideas builds on the success of the first Constituency Competition held last year in East Coast GRC. It also represents an expansion of HDB’s outreach to residents in two more constituencies - Sembawang and Nee Soon GRCs - and the event will be officiated by Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry & National Development, Lee Yi-Shyan, and Grassroots Adviser, Associate Professor Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim.

3At the event, HDB residents will attend a hands-on workshop organized by HDB to kick-off their team building and ideas development process for solutions to tackle three common daily living issues:

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Rainwater splashing along common areas and corridors

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Cooking which is left unattended in homes

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Household recycling

4Recognising that many of our residents have good ideas on how to enhance daily HDB living, the Constituency Competitions aim to harvest good ideas from the community and provide anyone a chance to participate in generating ideas for solving our daily living problems. Going forward, HDB plans to extend such Constituency-level Competitions island-wide, so that all residents can be engaged and involved in enhancing our living environment in the heartlands.

It’s Cool to Think - Turning ideas into practical solutions

5In addition to gathering ideas from residents and engaging them through community building activities, today’s event also showcases winning prototypes from the latest Student Design Competition (University Level) on incense burning and window cleaning, and the Call for Ideas on unsolicited flyers. The winners themselves will be at the event to share the inspiration behind their ideas. Some of the winners are pictured below:

Winning idea: Portable Incense Burner by students from Nanyang Technological University

Winning idea: Curbing unsolicited flyers by residents

6Winners of the Call for Ideas on unsolicited flyers, husband and wife team Mr Quek Yang Thee and Ms Haze Tay, said, “We stay in HDB flats and the competition raises issues that we experience and can relate to. So, we were inspired to share our ideas on the topic and hope to participate again in future."

7For ideas that may be feasible for future installation in flats, HDB will work with the contributors to refine their solutions to enhance their viability and usability. The contributors can then choose to commercialise their products for eventual sale in the market. To facilitate the process, HDB welcomes partnership from the private sector. Companies interested to further develop or manufacture any of the ideas are encouraged to approach HDB to explore potential collaboration with the inventors.

Background to the Cool Ideas for Better HDB Living Initiative

8Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan mooted the idea in June 2011 via his blog entry, “Solving Daily Problems”, when he invited members of the public to help solve daily issues faced by HDB residents, and contribute fresh views on improving the HDB living environment.

9Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry & National Development, Lee Yi-Shyan has led the ground-up effort since then, working closely with the HDB Building Research Institute to crowd-source ideas both on and offline.

10Last year, HDB residents and students responded with several “cool ideas” such as a “retractable lever system” for clothes drying, turning steps into ramps for greater mobility, and recycling bottles to grow vegetables.

11The 2013 Constituency Competition for Ideas and an exhibition of the winning prototypes will be launched at the Nee Soon East Community Club, on Sunday, 24 March 2013, from 10.00am to 1.00pm.